Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 35 
Ijy so doing ; and even now, tlic high prices which can easily be obtained for 
good animals are not more than a farmer would require to reimburse him for 
the keep, other expenses, and risk connected with keeping brood-mares and 
their piroduce up to three years old, when the young animals are fit for work. 
It would not pay a farmer to keep a stud of mares for breeding-purposes on a 
farm, even if the present high prices of horses could be looked upon as j^cr- 
manent. The only profitable way in which a farmer can rear them, is by 
having a few well-bred mares forming a proportion of the agricultural horses 
on the farm, and arranging the work so as to be able to rear a foal annually 
for every two pairs of horses kept. Thus, on a farm requiring six pairs of 
horses, an average of about three foals might be reared annually. The 
breeding of horses is not, like the_ breeding of sheep or cattle, limited to 
particular soils or climate. 
There are very few farms in this country on which horses cannot be reared, 
though keeping a farm mainly for horse-rearing is not considered so profitable 
as cattle and sheep stocks are. 
The great difficulty of getting, ia the public markets, horses which are 
sound and f:vult-free renders it very desirable that farmers should breed at 
least as many as they require for their own use. 
With regard to Cattle, there can be no hesitation in saying that, a^ a 
general rule, farmers could with profit in several districts breed and rear 
more of them than they do at present. Instead of sending so many of them 
from market to market in a lean state, running the risk of disease and exposure 
to cold — and from these causes, added to want of proper food, weakening 
their constitutions, and in too many cases carrying infection along with them, — 
it would be more advantageous if an attempt were made, where the circum- 
stances permitted, to combine the breeding, rearing, and feeding of cattle by 
the same person, who would theu have an interest in selecting good animals 
to breed from, and in having the animals continuously well treated, and fed 
properly till they were fit for the butcher. 
There may be a few farms on which cat Je cannot be profitably reared ; 
"but I have no doubt it would be attended with profit to the farmers them- 
selves, and benefit to the public at large, if the tenants of excellent farms in 
several districts of Scotland — whose stock at present principally consists of 
bought-in lean Irish and English stirks — would, instead of this kind of stock, 
keep good healthy breeding-cows, and cross them with pure-bred Shorthorn 
bulls. They would find that this home-bred stock would be better aitimals, 
■would come earlier to maturity, and leave a better return for the food con- 
sumed than the ordinary lean-stock now purchased. These, as a rule, are not 
■carefully bred, and are often a long time stalled up and consuming food before 
they begin to thrive, in consequence of previous exposure to cold, want of 
regular food, and general deterioration arising from the long distances they 
are sometimes travelled by steamboat and railways. 
In the memory of the present generation it was the universal custom in the 
county of Aberdeen, and other northern counties, to rear lean-stock exclu- 
sively, and sell them to be fattened on the rich pastures of England. This 
state of things has beeen gradually changing, until these counties are at 
present pre-eminently cattle-feeding districts. What has proved so successful 
in the cold climate and comparatively poor soil of Aberdeenshire ought not to 
be a failure, if fairly and judiciously tried, in the districts of England and 
Ireland which are at present mainly, if not exclusively, devoted to the rearing 
■of store-cattle. 
1'herc is no doubt whatever that the recent extraordinary rise in the price 
■of ordinary manual labour, and in tradesmen's bills and manures, tend to 
make the results of arable farming less jsrofitable than formerly. Farmers, 
who at the time of the Rinderpest were led to purchase sheep, and keep 
D 2 
